On the third evening after Tal first awoke in a Welsh cottage next to the wise woman’s abode the fading glow of twilight fell through an unshuttered window above his simple oak-frame bed to find Ceri perched atop a stool drawn near.
Ceri was alone with Lord Taliesan as she had been for the past three days, save for the knight lost in healing sleep on a pallet placed close to the carefully fitted rocks of the central hearth—and Gran Mab’s twice daily visits. Only when the older woman came each dawn and sunset to replace their patients’ bandages with fresh cloth strips soaked in an astringent solution and care for the men’s most intimate needs was Ceri free to retreat. It was then that Ceri could claim a brief private time to bathe, change garb, and deal with her own personal needs.
During their past days together Ceri and Tal had spent all the hours of daylight and stolen many from the nights to talk, to laugh, and to share memories both happy and sad. It was through this open contact that they had settled into a rare relationship of effortless compatibility … despite Ceridwen’s constant battle to hide how deeply Taliesan fascinated her, how his nearness roused overwhelming curiosity and deep, unfamiliar longings.
It was Lord Tal’s considerate response to her unspoken discomfort that had further earned Ceri’s admiration—and appreciation. Though Tal remained unclothed to ease her grandmother’s ministrations, whether laying flat or sitting upright as now, he spared her embarrassment by keeping the bedfur carefully pulled up over his legs with upper edge folded neatly above his waist.
Ceri felt closer to Tal than to any human she had ever known. A closeness that seemed only to intensify a dangerous compulsion to helplessly stare while flickering light from the hearth behind played across his powerful chest.
Tal felt the shy caress of her green mist gaze and sensed the admiration behind it. Ceridwen was far from the first female to react to him this way, and he’d long ago learned how to control both his response and theirs. But in this instance he was forced to reluctantly acknowledge the fact that this lovely innocent was best left to the males among her own people. Their positions in life were too vastly different. Asides, whether for good or ill, commitments had already been made on his behalf.
Forcing her errant gaze to drop, Ceri peered through a grey haze of smoke drifting up from the hearthfire to blindly study pale fingers twined into the forest green gown covering her lap. In this way she was better able to keep attention wholly focused on Tal’s words while he quietly spoke of the sad day his older brother had suddenly died.
“Will was strong and rarely idle but—” The hand Tal had absently waved now abruptly closed into a tight fist and thumped hard against his uninjured thigh. “In the space of a single day, nay, a single hour he was … gone.”
In Taliesan’s voice Ceri heard both the anguish of loss and an underlying thread of—was it guilt? Though wisely remaining silent, she radiated unspoken comfort for the devastating hero long admired from afar but now found even more praiseworthy after having come to know the truth of the honorable man so much better.
“I was nearly thirteen and hadn’t seen my brother and only playmate for what seemed eons but had actually been a mere three months.”
Never before had Tal spoken of this most painful event from his past, not even to his grieving parents. To him it was clear that Ceri understood him as no one ever had. Tal gazed with wonder at the woman of such incredible loveliness she appeared almost luminescent despite the drab green of her homespun garb. And somehow the gentle solace in her misty gaze drew a long inheld poison out from the depths of the aching soul he’d learned to successfully hide beneath a tight fitting facade of wry jests and laughter.
“Will was home at Westbourne for a first visit after beginning his fostering with Earl Robert in Cardiff Keep.” An echo of Tal’s childhood adoration for an older brother lingered in his voice. “We were playing on the castle’s parapet walkway as we had many, many times before. He was anxious to show off all the new skills he had learned and promptly insisted on demonstrating the right way to dodge a down-slashing broadsword.”
Tal grinned with the memory and Ceridwen’s soft mouth tilted upward in a reflected smile of such sweetness it instantly reaffirmed his belief that, if not an angel, still this dainty damsel truly was the most enchanting woman he had ever seen.
Intently studying a heart-shaped face overwhelmed by masses of ebony silk, Tal’s attention inevitably settled on enticing lips silently issuing promises which he much doubted the innocent she plainly was could possibly understand.
Beneath the breath-stealing power igniting golden flashes in the depths of Tal’s steady dark gaze, Ceri’s heart pounded erratically and a foolish question slipped through her lips.
“Did some vile ailment befall Will in the midst of your play?” Ceri repented the moment these words left her tongue. They instantly replaced the warmth on Tal’s stunningly handsome face with a mask of frost-covered granite.
“Nay,” Tal immediately denied. “To properly display this new tactic, Will urged me to wield my wooden sword and feign a mortal blow. I recognized the danger but still I obeyed.” Dark eyes hardened to black ice. “Then to evade my stroke Will, as taught, stepped sideways with great agility.
“Will failed to consider the consequences of his hasty action—consequences I saw but failed to insist that he heed. He fell from Westbourne’s parapet down into a season-dry moat to lay smashed on the jagged surface of its exposed rocks.”
“How awful for you!” Ceri softly gasped in artless sympathy, horrified by the emotional pain Tal must have endured.
Knocked completely off balance by Ceri’s reaction, a faint furrow marred Tal’s brow. He knew the exclamation of this beauty nearly a stranger only days past was sincere. Her honest concern emphasized the lack of the many who knew him infinitely better yet hadn’t been troubled by so much as a single moment’s distress on his behalf.
“It was Will’s death two decades ago that buried all of Westbourne beneath a heavy, relentless cloud of gloom that yet lingers.”
Ceri instinctively reached out to soothe away tension revealed by the large hand still clenched on one knee. Her action earned a disarmingly potent smile from Tal who also opened his hand to gently clasp her delicate fingers.
“Having been termed the ‘family jester’ since near the day I took my first steps—” As Tal spoke his smile slid awry. “I earnestly tried to relieve my sire’s sorrow for the loss of the heir he adored. I failed miserably … and continued to fail until the day he, too, left the woe of this world behind.”
“Of what did your father die?” Ceri quietly asked, tamping down a likely unsavory curiosity roused by the years of unnatural silence surrounding this never answered question.
At the time of the old earl’s passing no one had publicly provided a reason for it. Indeed, whatever had precipitated Earl William’s death remained to this day shrouded in the gloom of an unwholesome mystery. Over the years since his loss Ceri had heard many causes suggested—some were wildly implausible, most were furtively whispered, and all were near certain to be untrue. She watched Tal with close attention to gauge the frankness of his answer.
“What caused it?” As Tal rephrased the question disgust tinged his tone. “My mother claims that the deaths of both my brother and father were the result of some nonsense about an end to her supply of magical seeds.”
Dark eyes, carefully shuttered, directly met Ceri’s gentle gaze. “But I know too well my own part in the first. And it is equally clear that my father’s ever-deepening anguish was to blame for him choosing to abandon my mother and me.”
Although Ceri suspected Tal would heatedly deny it, she heard an echo of anguish at least as deep in his voice. It was certain that Tal truly believed he had played a crucial role in the unhappiness of his family’s past, and she sorrowed for his pain.
Gazing deep into the mysterious mists of her unusual silver-green eyes, Tal felt enveloped by waves of compassion. Without forethought he reached out to lift and lay Ceri across his lap, gently cradling her alluring curves near.
On suddenly finding herself close against Tal’s powerful body, shocked delight swept through Ceri and robbed her of sensible thought. Here, just inches above, was the source of her myriad fantasies, and she refused to count the cost in guilt for wicked pleasures claimed only as the gift of her grandmother’s arts. Melting into his strong embrace, she was thrilled that the heart beneath her hand had accelerated to the same quick, pounding beat as her own.
The feel of this tempting enchantress who willingly nestled closer in his arms lit flames of wanting that sent blood coursing through Tal’s veins like molten rivers. Then as her small pink tongue darted out to quickly touch a gently bowed upper lip, golden fires blazed in his eyes and a deep groan escaped.
A similar aching sound welled up from Ceri’s throat as with wonder she watched those fires of hungry desire flare in his dark gaze. Heart racing ever faster and lashes fluttering half-closed, she purposely sank into the realm of unthinking sensation even while tilting her face upward to lift her mouth as a welcome offering to his.
Irresistibly drawn, Tal lowered his dark head yet paused a whisper above lips silently promising untold delights she couldn’t possibly understand. Although few men of his position would hesitate in taking any female of lesser station, he was halted by a nagging certainty that he would be wrong to accept what this clearly innocent damsel naively offered.
Lost in a haze of mindless response, Ceri tangled her fingers into the cool strands of his night-black hair and urged him down, seeking what she didn’t know while her heart raced so fast that her breath almost stopped in anticipation.
After what seemed an endless eon, Tal surrendered, and fit his lips to Ceri’s with exquisite tenderness. He barely brushed them, enticing them to follow his until she ached for a deeper, more satisfying contact. But still he nibbled at the edges of her mouth, gently nudging it to open and allow his tongue to both enter and retreat in teasing strokes like a bee after berry nectar. Then when Ceri answered the call, Tal captured her tempting tongue and taught her the blazing depths of the fire she’d evoked.
Ceri eagerly yielded to the possession of this devastating kiss tenderly begun but now raging out of control with the speed of a wind-fanned forest fire. And in those same passionate moments, Tal carefully shifted the dainty wood-sprite so temptingly near to rest beside him on the narrow pallet—but on top of the bedfurs he lay beneath.
Feeling as if the axis of her world was in danger of losing its steady center, Ceri helplessly clung to the master of her senses. And with a small, wild cry she attempted to align her soft curves against the heated contours of the powerful body separated from her by soon resented bedcovers.
Tal broke the bond of their mouths and rose above Ceri on one elbow before bending his head to rub short, teasing kisses on her eyelids, cheeks, and throat. All the while he stroked down from below her upraised arms to her hips and up again, slowly moving forward with each pass.
As Tal’s hands smoothed closer, ever closer to breasts that rose and fell with each near-painful breath, Ceri moaned, “Tali-e-e-sa-a-an—”
In the beguiling tones of her voice his name sounded like the irresistible enticement of a siren’s call and Tal instantly responded. He urged Ceri to tilt her head back, easing the path of his lips down from the tip of her chin to the dip at the base of her throat while his hands moved around to her rib cage and gradually, tantalizingly edged higher.
When at last he cupped the tender weight of soft curves, Ceri’s vulnerable lips parted as a faint, aching gasp escaped. And yet this exquisite torment was not done. Nor could she bear the anguish threatened by even the possibility of its sudden end. While Tal’s mouth continued its searing trail Ceri wondered if this sweet well of burning pleasures was bottomless? Would she drown in the consuming depths of its hungry flames? Could she bear not to?
A desperate whimper of protest broke free when the front laces of her forest-green gown brought an abrupt halt to his mouth’s passionate journey over responsive flesh.
Tal withdrew one hand from the fiery melody of seduction being played upon her body and moved it to loosen the ties barring him from his goal. Gently brushing homespun cloth surely too rough for the satin delicacy of Ceri’s skin down to her waist, he allowed hungry eyes gone nearly black with desire to feast on the alabaster perfection of her bounty.
Beneath the potent gaze that felt like a physical caress, Ceri instinctively arched her back and Tal’s last tenuous shred of restraint vanished. He immediately reached out to firmly grasp her shoulders. Then, exercising both great strength and tenderness, he lifted this dainty embodiment of all his desires and held her a brief distance above.
Ceri was dazed by this unexpected shift in his sensual onslaught and gave a sharp cry of longing when of a sudden his mouth brushed lightly across her breasts. A thundering pulse blocked breath while she was suspended in unfamiliar, aching sensations. Her green eyes closed and every feeling centered on the teasing touches, devastating caresses that were doing impossibly exciting things to her.
Tal surprised Ceri again by lowering her to the bed and rolling to gently trap her beneath him. Overwhelmed, she lay burning with the shocked delight of discovering his body pressed exactly over hers—chest to breast, hip to hip, and thigh to thigh. Heat-thick blood had slowed her pulse to a dragging and uncertain rhythm but it blazed and sang when he groaned and pressed her even tighter to the power of his long form.
As again Tal ardently claimed the intoxicating berrywine of her passion-swollen lips, Ceri found it heady to realize that she had the power to make her stunning hero feel as desperate for her as she was for him. Mindlessly wrapping her arms tight about his broad back, she urgently caressed its smooth, muscled expanse.
He pulled slightly away but only far enough and long enough to sweep already loosened garments completely from her. Aching with delicious pleasures she’d never known existed, Ceri’s starving gaze feasted on the magnificence of his bare chest now thrillingly close. It was a powerful expanse of bronzed muscle partially covered by an arrow of dark hair that spread across its width and drew her gaze down over a firm, flat belly—
Tal’s face went taut and, shuddering under the silvery intensity of her gaze, he stretched out at her side while for long moments stroking hot pleasure over her willing body. Burning with unimaginable heat, she melted against his strength, silently urging him to carry her into the ravenous flames, and wordlessly begging for surcease.
Not until Ceri writhed with the insatiable hunger of desire did Tal rise above her once more. Then only gradually did he lower himself, letting her feel the tantalizingly gentle rasp of wiry curls across her own tender flesh. His lips softened into a sensual curve as tremors of helpless response swept through the magical creature in his arms.
As willing prey to the devastating master of her unexpected aching need, Ceri smoothed her hands in fascination over the wide expanse of his torso, reveled in the clenching of the powerful muscles beneath her touch.
Tal came fully down, crushing the delicate angel’s yielding body beneath his considerable weight, but she welcomed his warm strength, gloried in his closeness. It was a torment sweeter and more intoxicating than a rarely tasted mulled wine yet not nearly enough. She yearned to be nearer, wanted more, and tightly wrapped her arms about his wide shoulders before urgently running her palms across his back and up to lock about his neck. Ruled by instinct, she writhed against the hard curve of his body with shattering intimacy.
Drowning in feverish need and far beyond rational thought, Tal’s hands swept down skin like hot satin to tilt her hips into his and ease their joining. Into his open mouth he took her short gasp of pain, holding motionless until it was she who moved insistently, helplessly surging against his unyielding strength. Only then did he teach her the primitive rhythm of passion, rocking them both deeper, ever deeper into the fountain of of fiery delights.
Afraid she could not bear a greater intensity, still Ceri clung desperately to the source, tinder to feed a hotter blaze. At last while her sobs pleaded for release, Tal rested on his forearms and stared down into remarkable eyes that flashed with blinding silver as she surrendered to the consuming pleasure—a sight that pulled him, too, into satisfaction’s passionate shower of glittering sparks.
Drifting on clouds of contentment, Tal rolled to his back and drew Ceri into the gentle cradle of his embrace. Stroking gentle ease over the trembling woman, smoothing the tangled silk of her ebony hair, and pressing kisses to the top of her head, he marveled at the miracle of this ethereal damsel.
Tal began devising plans to see that this amazing treasure he’d discovered became a permanent part of his life … no matter his mother’s undoubted disapproval or the crushing blow it would deliver to her plans. With thoughts of a future unexpectedly bright, Tal slipped into warm dreams.
Despite her complete inexperience in the ways of passion, Ceri was certain that with what had just passed between them she’d reached the pinnacle of perfection … a glorious reality that only deepened her anguish. For her the love it betokened was honest and true but for Tal it would soon be naught but a forgotten fantasy born of magic.
Gran Mab had warned her of a price to be paid, and now Ceri clearly understood the full measure of that painfully high cost.
* * *
“You failed!” Simeon hissed words full of venom that slithered through the night forest’s brisk air like adders loosed to strike in deadly earnest. “You gave your oath to see the deed done—but broke it.”
“Nay!” With his path through the night forest unexpectedly blocked, the burly man swathed in a cloak of thick homespun stiffened against the verbal assault and countered its poison by immediately denying its truth. “I kept my oath and did all that was promised. I led the way to the site where three riders appeared and three arrows were shot. All hit their targets without fail.”
“But the earl lives.” This response dipped into the dangerously quiet tone Simeon found most effective when dealing with inferiors … and he found this Welshman the worst example of that inadequate breed, utterly unworthy of more.
“I was dining at Farleith Keep when came a messenger with the news that although Lord Taliesan had been wounded in a failed assault, he was carried to safety in the village of Dyffryn.”
“I did all that I promised.” Lloyd’s clipped answer was delivered with a shrug and cold, mirthless smile. “Did all that could be done but there are powers abroad which—”
“No!” Simeon’s sharp chin shot upward while his fair brows crashed into a deep scowl. “Don’t bother to defend your inefficiency with more tales of the old hag and her spells.”
Simeon’s response was not a surprise but rather silent confirmation of a fact Lloyd had never doubted. Though each had lived more than five decades, Simeon was as immature as he’d been when long ago the two of them, along with Ulrich, had been fostered by Earl William in Castle Westbourne. Yet still, for the sake of their shared childhood long past, Lloyd issued a warning unlikely to be heeded.
“Scorn Mab’s powers, Simeon, and you will pay the price.”
“Pay the price?” Simeon scoffed at the words. “You must know the witch well to have taken her favorite threat for your own.”
Lloyd’s eyes hardened to an ice as cold as the frozen expression on his face. “There is no man—nor woman, either—in the Princedom of Llechu who doesn’t know Mabyn well and accept her abilities for the potent force they are.”
“Tch, so you all say.” Simeon disdainfully shrugged. “But in these many years I have seen your ‘wise woman’ perform nothing magical save the manner of stale tricks which can be easily wrought by any simple conjuror of even mediocre talents.”
“Simeon, you are a fool.” Not waiting for the explosion of temper he had no doubt was soon to follow, Lloyd spun on his heel. And he would’ve strode into the darkness but for the deceptively frail hand that shot out to grasp his forearm and hold him back with unanticipated strength.
Much gratified by Lloyd’s startled gaze, Simeon sneered. “Now while the wound-weakened earl lies nearby, I will grant you one last chance to fulfill your solemn oath.…”
“My oath is fulfilled,” Lloyd flatly asserted while shaking off unwelcome fingers. “Thus, I have no need for another chance. ’Tis you who wishes an end to Lord Taliesan, and to achieve your goal only you—not I—must act.”